Michael Strahan worried daughter Isabella would die amid cancer diagnosis: ‘You have to control your thoughts’

Michael Strahan can admit that his mind went to a dark place when he learned that his daughter, Isabella, had been diagnosed with cancer.

During a candid father-daughter chat with Town and Country, the Good Morning America anchor confessed that he initially feared she might die. “As a parent you hear that your kid has cancer and you go, ‘Whoa,’” he told the outlet. “You have to control your thoughts, because your brain thinks of the worst case scenario, and then you work your way back from there.”

Though Isabella has now been declared cancer-free, he added, “I don’t think I’ll go through the rest of my life without some worry in some shape or form about this.”

Pointing to how jarring her diagnosis felt, Strahan shared that he was attending a birthday party for one of his former Giants teammates when he got the call.

“At the time, Isabella was modeling, the face of Sephora. She was healthy, beautiful,” he said. “It was surreal. For a week or two I’d wake up and go, ‘Okay, that was a bad dream,’ and then realize, ‘We’re still in this another day. Here we go.’”

Isabella, who was days in her freshman year at college, returned home to undergo an intensive treatment plan that would include three brain surgeries and several rounds of radiation and chemotherapy.

It was definitely tough and painful to watch that,” Strahan said. “It was painful for her to get out of bed and move and do those things that are completely necessary for her to do. As a parent, to see that was unsettling at times. But throughout this entire journey, Isabella has inspired and helped us all by how she has approached what she was facing.”

He added that he was constantly “amazed” by her strength. For her part, Isabella shared, “I was not scared going into brain surgery. I was laughing.”

She added that she certainly went through bouts of depression but, “what are you going to do? It’s not going to help in any way. You’ve just got to get through it.”

She continued, “I think this year has made me stronger. The people in your life are what makes it enjoyable. Now I don’t say no to anything. I don’t think, I’ll do it next week. You don’t know what next week will look like.”

In October of last year, the 20-year-old underwent an emergency surgery to remove a tumor in her cerebellum. Since then, she has documented the ups and downs of her cancer treatment in a candid vlog series on YouTube, in the hopes of offering other young people a grounded perspective of living through the disease.

Though Strahan admits that he had some concerns about the video project, he now sees that Isabella has been a force for good.

“I was like, ‘You don’t have to do this, you can just quietly go heal yourself.’ I was worried not everyone would be kind,” he shared. “But she really wanted to do it. I’m so glad she did. People come up to me everywhere — at the gym, while I’m playing golf — to tell me they love her YouTube channel. Now I see what she has done to help people and support her 1,200 percent.”

The father and daughter have also teamed up to raise money for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital as well as Duke Children’s Hospital and the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center, where Isabella received treatment.

We’re not the first family to go through this and unfortunately won’t be the last,” Strahan said. “But if we can help at all, hopefully at some point there will be a last.”